The Horde Without End (The World Without End) (3 page)

“We both want the same thing, Nurrin. I want him back, too.”

She stares at me for a long tense moment, and then, “Why did you let him in? Of all the people in 8, why did Collin crack you?”

I remember that first day, walking into the training room. I hadn’t needed it—but the Commander had insisted if I were to Walk, I’d train with his men. So there I was, and Collin was leaning against a wall, watching with this little smile on his face. I didn’t know much about him, except two very important things: he survived the Turn, and he was Nurrin Sanders’ brother.

Even then, I knew who she was—a hot-blooded, spitting hellcat at fifteen. I’d been watching her from a distance since I arrived in 18, and I’d learned a lot.

Quiet. Unassuming. And fucking savage when she was threatened. One recurring theme was her brother. He had no life outside his sister and went through hell to keep her identity as a First under wraps.

I walked up and gave him a smirk. “How long do you think you can keep a First under wraps?”

His face had gone comically shocked, and then he punched me.

“O’Malley,” she snaps, exasperated. I blink, staring. How long had I been lost in thought? “You know, it gets really boring when you refuse to talk about anything,” she says grumpily. I shrug, and she snorts and settles across from me with her MRE.

She takes first watch. Even in a city with no evidence of infects, we’re going to have a watch. Anything else would be stupid and irresponsible. When she wakes me for my watch, I stretch and murmur, “Anything?”

“No.”

We don’t say anything else as she crawls into her sleep sack, and I prop against the wall by the window, rolling my neck to work out the kinks. Slowly, silence eases back down on the little room.

I stare out into the darkness, trying to ignore the sound of her quiet, almost silent crying. The wind has picked up, and it shakes the trees outside, giving everything an eerie quality and making the shadows dance. But for all of that, it’s quiet.

“We can leave,” she says.

“Not in the dark, Nurrin. Suicide missions aren’t my thing.”

She makes an unladylike noise and rolls over.

A shrill scream splits the night, and she jerks upright. Even in the darkness, from the far side of the room, I can see the terror on her face, the wild, wide eyes. I put a finger to my mouth, and she nods. Shifts out of her sleep sack and crawls silently to my side.

The first zom appears from the trees, darting out of the depths of the apple orchard. She shivers, watching it, and doesn’t see the second.

I do.

“Fuck,” I whisper. She looks away from that first—it’s almost to the house—and sees what I do.

Infects are pack animals. They travel in small groups—small being the key. There’s a lot of speculation as to why—my theory is that they can’t feed enough to sustain large groups. They happen, occasionally, especially when cities were falling in the East. But they always splinter, a horde becoming smaller and spread out, manageable.

This though—

It’s a horde.

And not just a horde—but the largest I’ve ever seen. It makes the mass of infects in Vegas, drawn there by the Order, seem small. It's bigger than the horde that enclosed the truck on our way back. They pour out of the trees by the hundreds, swarming the orchard and around the house. They aren't silent—not like the last horde we saw. This one is full of fury and hunger, their screams scraping along the walls of the house, filling up the little room until I'm sure it will drown out everything, the last sounds we ever hear. Nurrin mutters a low curse and clamps her hands over her ears, her eyes scrunched shut.

It's not an escape. There isn't one.

The worst part isn't the screams, or the sheer number of them. It's how new they are. The horde moves with speed and fury, at an awkward, limping gate. Like the infection is still ripping through them, changing them.

I see Wall Walkers, snarling alongside the others.

She makes a low noise, almost a moan, and I shift, putting a hand to her lips.

They can't hear us—not over their own noise—and they probably won't be able to sniff us out over the reek of zom repellant. But it's still better to stay quiet until the horde has passed.

She slumps against me, and we sit like that for a long time, watching as they race by. Snap at each other. Scream in anger and hunger.

They’re changing. ERI has always been highly adaptable—it was the miracle of the drug, and the reason it doomed us all. But their behavior is becoming a pattern.

Hordes, moving like they’ve scented the living, when there’s no reason for it. Infects don’t move like that unless they’ve narrowed in on a human. Even animal meat doesn’t raise this kind of response.

I’ve known this was coming—that it was inevitable. I’m still not ready for it.

But at least the falling Havens make a little more sense.

Even after they have passed, we sit in silence, watching a few straggling infects scrambling after the main horde.

The silence, after the screaming fades, is startling. It wraps around us like a heavy blanket, broken only by her raspy breathing as she tries not to fall apart. I sink down and prop my crossbow against my knee. Glance across the window to meet her terrified eyes.

"What are they doing?" she asks, her voice shaking. My muscles clench, and I struggle to stay still. It's the last thing I want. But I can’t have what I want.

"They're adapting," I say, looking away. "ERI-Milan is a highly adaptable virus. It looks like it's changed again."

"But why?" Nurrin sounds lost and broken—I hate that weakness in her voice, hate that I think less of her for it.

"Why do any of us adapt? They're trying to survive."

She opens her mouth to say something, and I roll my head to the side, staring out the window. "Get some sleep, Nurrin. What the infects are doing doesn't matter—tomorrow we have to get to 9."

I hear her inhale, probably preparing to argue with me. I flick a glance at her, and she bites down on whatever she's going to say. Snuggles deeper into her sleep sack, which she half drug over when the horde came through. I stare out at the darkness as she closes her eyes and drifts off to sleep, refusing to look at her.

The infects were fresh. That's the most troubling part of it—not the size of the horde. I've known for a long time that they outnumber us. But this is unprecedented. Even during the first wave of infection.

That first three months, while the world fell to pieces and the dead moved like a fucking plague, three of seven people were killed or changed. Those were your odds. Seven people walk into the apocalypse. Four make it out—if they’re lucky.

Three billion died in three months. Then we got our shit together enough that we could fight back, pulling every defense we had into the fight and throwing up walls as quickly as we could. Havens went up faster than anyone believed possible—the first four were functioning within six months of the bombing of Atlanta.

Having the dead killing the living lit a fire under people’s asses. Evac orders were sent, and we hid. The slaughter slowed after that.

By the time First Day rolled around for the first time, another billion were dead. The dead outweighed us by numbers—but we were fighting back and holding our own.

Fucking stubborn.

I shake my head, trying to dislodge the thoughts of another time, another life—back when I thought we could win this fight. Back when winning might have meant something. We all dreamed of something—going back to the world we had before Emilie died and everything changed.

The truth is there is no winning—no going back. The zombies are here—ERI-Milan is too prevalent and adaptable to kill completely. We will never reclaim the East. We will never be rid of the zombies.

We’re all searching for something—a Clean place—but what we’re really doing is waiting for the other shoe to fall.

And from the size of that fucking horde, I’m beginning to wonder if it already has and we’re just not aware of it yet.

The truck ahead of me bobbles, riding the edge of the curb, and I tap my horn, annoyed. If she blows out one of my tires because she’s fucking with the AC, I’m going to be pissed. She responds by flashing her brakes at me.

Smartass.

I don’t like her in a separate car. There’s no one to take point, for either of us. If we hit trouble—when, because it’s always just a matter of time—there’s no one to cover us. I’m used to being able to concentrate on the road, because she’s riding shotgun, that little pistol of hers always in her lap.

A girl with a gun should not be such a fucking turn on.

But I’ve been a walking hard-on since she rolled out of her sleep sack this morning, her shirt tangled up and giving me a delectable view of her nipples, shadowed points under the thin cotton.

I remember what she felt like, under my hand in the club at the casino. I remember how she came alive, how she had crawled into my lap, a hot little bundle of want.

She might hate me. It might be the worst idea in a long line of bad fucking ideas. But there is no denying there’s a hell of a connection between us.

I’ve always known there would be. It’s the only thing that’s kept me away from her bed all these years.

Nurrin isn’t a Haven girl—not the kind I can fuck and forget. Even if I tried, I don’t think she’d let me—she’s the kind of girl that sinks into your pores, who comes screaming and wraps around your soul.

Which is a stupid fucking thought if I’ve ever had one.

The truck bobbles again, and I curse, shoving the ZTNK into high gear and pushing the throttle until I’m alongside her.

She’s smiling, one leg propped on the seat as she nibbles on an apple and steers one handed. The window is down, whipping her hair around like a blonde tornado.

She looks free and unconcerned—the most carefree I’ve seen her since we left Haven 8. I let the window roll down and toss a bullet at her. She smirks at me, her eyes lazy and taunting. “Keep the damn truck on the road!” I shout.

She laughs, lazily flips me the bird, and hits the gas. I swallow my laughter as she pulls ahead of me, swerving into my lane to cut me off. I relax against the plush seat, staring at the taillights of the truck and trying to think about something other than why I want to fuck her senseless. And how—because I have a damn good imagination and—

A plume of dirt kicks up suddenly to the east. Too suddenly. I smack the horn. Three quick beats. She hits the brakes so fast I swerve, the ZTNK swaying alarmingly as I dodge the suddenly still Ford.

She’s out and moving before I’ve stopped the ZTNK, exploding into the back of the RV with worry clear in her green eyes.

“Kill the truck,” I order quickly. “Then take the roof of the ZTNK.”

She nods, and I jerk on the trap door to the roof, letting the collapsible stairs fall down. There are three mounted gun turrets up here, and a weapons locker. I flip it open and grin at the sight of the grenades. The dust is getting thicker, moving closer, and across the empty plain, I can hear the sound of engines, the buzz like an annoying insect.

Nurrin is leaning into the engine of the truck, her ass in the air, and I whistle sharply. She shouts a curse then pops up, holding a greasy handful of spark plugs.

My truck isn’t going anywhere.

“Nurrin, move your ass,” I shout, and she turns back, lurching to the truck and almost climbing inside. I glance again at the cloud, and I can pick them out, a group of motorcycles darting across the plain, a few open backed Jeeps.

Fuck.

“Nurrin,” I snarl again, and she’s in, the RV door locking behind her. It’s a steel reinforced door, made to be resistant for up to twelve hours of siege. There’s no way they’re coming in that way. I hear the clatter of her feet, and then she’s at my side, stepping past me to grab a few grenades and tucking them into her pocket.

“Will they leave us alone?” she asks, checking her knives. I feed a string of bullets into the machine gun and click the safety off. Shrug.

The buzz has become a roar, and I step away from my gun and into Nurrin’s space. She goes stiff as I put an arm around her, tugging her against me, my lips at her ear. “Sit down on the roof. Try to look non-threatening. Follow my lead, do you understand?”

“You are so fucking bossy,” she grumbles, her breath against my neck punctuating the words. My grip tightens on her, and I shake her a little. She knocks my hands away, glaring. “I understand. I’ll be your little windup toy, but I’ll be honest, O’Malley. This shit is getting hella old.”

I dismiss her complaint, turning the gun lazily to the south, and watch the motorcycles rumbling closer. Dust billows up around the RV and us as they prowl around the truck and race circles around the ZTNK.

Marauders. I watch them, looking for some clue to what kind they are—the type to be tossed out of a Haven for a criminal offense or the kind who just hates government control.

Some people are stubborn enough that they’ll face the infects before they face the government controlling their life and world, even with the limited government we have now. It’s not exactly sane, but it’s their choice. And there is something vaguely tempting about it—the lure of freedom.

These though—they’re not people looking for a bit of freedom. These are people who live on the edge of society because they can’t abide by society’s laws.

Before, people who broke laws were put in prison to keep them away from society and to carry out their punishment. But when we turned prisons into havens, we had to rethink the justice system.

It was pretty simple. Follow the rules, or be put in the Wide Open to take your chances with zombies.

It didn’t get rid of crime entirely—nothing could do that—but it helped.

But the people who lived in the Wide Open, in traveling gangs, they were vicious, with no moral qualms and a survival streak a mile wide.

I let a smile stretch my lips. Because we have something in common.

The leader is a scrawny man with thin hair, sharp eyes, and enough weapons that I’m left wondering if he has a bit of an inferiority complex.